Shut Up and Listen!

Ephesians 3:17-19

17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

As a continuation of yesterday’s passage, once we get over ourselves, let’s see what happens: that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  You see, this is part of the “surrender” we often hear about in church.  This is the “living sacrifice” that the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 12.  Certainly, our initial belief comes from God alone as we seek Him out and have the guts to ask Him what He wants for our lives.  Once that belief is given, we must continue to seek Him out.  Salvation is a lifelong commitment and process.  It’s not a specific event.

God isn’t going to fight for you to choose Him.  He’s already done that on the cross.  I think sometimes we become indignant about God and the fact that He gives us a choice.  “Well, if He wants me to do this or that, then why doesn’t He just make me?”  The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t truly matter if you have to be made to do it, does it?  I mean, think about when we were kids and our parents made us apologize.  We didn’t do it because we were truly sorry for our offense, we were sorry we were in trouble and just wanted to do whatever to get over it and move on.  Let me make it a little more serious:  being loved by someone is meaningless if you try to make them love you, isn’t it?

God loves us more than we will ever know (verse 19), but He will not fill our hearts or our lives unless we ask Him to.  This is why He is referred to as the “perfect gentleman.”  Once that happens, however, we will be rooted and grounded in love since the Prince of Peace and Author of Love will be residing within us.  It is only then that we will begin to understand the vastness of His love (verse 18).  Yesterday I talked about the absolute power of God that He gifts us with but that we cannot even begin to understand or use unless we get out of the way.  Today we are talking about how we receive that power.  We receive His Spirit by just seeking Him out and asking Him to take over.

I said before that this isn’t just a onetime event.  Rather, it is a lifelong journey of discovery that we get to experience by submitting daily to His desires, His will, His purpose for our lives.  Our pastor has been talking recently about living a life obedient to God.  He isn’t going to gift us with abundant life, understanding of His will, or even a definition of His purpose for our lives if we don’t sit still long enough to actually listen to what He has to say and then actually do what He says.

Do you want to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge?  Are you curious about what it means to be filled up to all the fullness of God?  What is preventing you from experiencing it?  Why aren’t you listening?  Why aren’t you asking?

I get frustrated when I see or hear from people that go through life struggling with everything.  Maybe it’s because I did it for so many years of my own life.  Our God wants us to enjoy our lives.  He has built us for a specific purpose and if we stop to ask Him what that is, we will finally begin to recognize it and experience peace.  What is it about your life that makes you feel unpeaceful today?  Have you asked God what He wants you to do with it?

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